Making It: Disney Edition

Wow. It's been awhile since I've done one of these. And this one is going to be all compilation-ey. Sorry. But, look, it's good stuff. With pictures. Seriously.

Anyway, when I started planning our Disney trip, the first thing I started doing was planning all the things I was going to make the girls. A week of matching t-shirts! Park Packs! Water bottles! Yadda, yadda. My eyes were bigger than my time. But I did make a few things. And I was happy with each and every one of them!

Autograph Books

You can buy autograph books all over the park. All different types. And then, you take them with you when you go to meet a character and they autograph it for you. It's a cute idea, and the books aren't outrageous. (I think $10-$15) was the most common I saw. But we went a different way. I picked up these red notebooks for $4.99 for a pack of three. Then, using adhesive backed black felt, I cut out a Mickey's head and an initial. I free-handed the initials, but you could easily print off a letter and trace it out. After cutting out the "stickers" and adding them, I tied a short length of ribbon to a Sharpie and glued it to the inside back cover of the book. Simple, sweet and easy to use. The total cost (including Sharpie) was about $4.63 each. In addition to saving about $5, we had them the moment we walked into the first park. This was handy because we immediately jumped into line by Snow White and were only about third back to meet her. They are also personalized. We only used a few pages, because the girls didn't want to waste a lot of time in line, so I'm going to hold onto these for the next trip. Since they are sort of classic, I don't think anyone will be "growing out" of theirs soon.

Phone Number Bracelet

I saw this idea on Pinterest and immediately thought it was great. A big part of the anxiety I have surrounding crowds is getting separated from whoever I'm with. When it's another adult, I tend to cling like a scared puppy. I can't do that to my kids. Showing them just how scared I am is only going to make them scared. So, I hold on as tight as I can, explain how important it is to stay close and work at keeping my freakouts to a minimum. Strapping my cell phone number to my kids wrist? Very helpful. I explained when I put them on what they were and what they were for. If they became misplaced, they were to stick to the spot, flag down a cast member and have them call me. Thankfully, I didn't have to use them, but wow, was it a relief to know they were there. I put a lot of thought into how to make these. Elastic seemed to be the most useful, but I didn't want the bracelet to get lost, that would defeat the purpose. Eventually, I strung the number beads and some colored pony beads onto embroidery floss and tied them on. The girls knew that they were to stay on until the vacation was over. Worked like a charm. Finding the number beads was a bear, so start looking early. We eventually tracked them down at Hobby Lobby. I had to buy pretty large bags of beads, so I can't accurately tell you a project cost. Peace of mind is probably worth it, though.

Flip Flops

This last one is just for fun. If you're going to be around a pool, you need flip flops, right? Of course, and why not have fun and pretty ones? I got the cheapest plain flip flops I could find and tied ribbons around them. That's pretty much it. I can tell you that I used ten strips of each ribbon on each flip flop and that the strips were about 5 inches long. I used four different ribbons, alternating. One of my "ribbons" was actually a spool of tulle and this helped amp up the fluffiness and also made the ribbon stretch. You might need more if you stick to just ribbon. For this project, I put $2 into the flip flops and bought a spool of ribbon for each for about $2 a spool. The rest of the ribbon came from my ribbon box. If you don't have a ribbon box, this could easily top $10 a pair, depending on ribbon.

I have a nice long list of projects for the next trip. We'll see how many I get made then.